I think that, in Salvation History, it almost always works out that first comes
bad news and then
good news or, in other words,
resistance to God and His Plan, followed by a
redemption. It seems, however, that, since St. Augustine, the Church has tended to feel that whereas this alternating pattern of resistance/redemption is a fair assessment of OT history, the pattern has been interrupted in the NT era, so that good and evil coexist
equally across the age of the Church, instead of alternating in prevalence. That is, this is the essential view of amill, based on the parable of the Wheat and the Tares in Matt. 13.
Whereas I believe that the fully allegorical interpretation of amill may be admitted as a
secondary meaning of the text of Rev. 20, I dispute that that is the
primary, literal sense of the text. That is, I’m a postmiller. This places me at odds with the most in the Church. Us postmillies are like the bastard children of the Catholic Church. We’re a minority, just like DO’s are a minority in the vast ocean of MD’s in medicine.
At any rate, I believe that the alternating pattern continues into the Church age, so that my interpretation of John 17:20-23 is that it suggests this same alternating pattern: first comes
bad news (the effects of the Fall), followed by
good news (the effects of the Redemption). In this view, Christ’s prayer for unity has a part I (effects of the Fall) and a part II (effects of the Redemption). That is, in the first great era of Church history, there will be an initial conversion, but because of the fallen nature of man, there will be
division amongst Christ’s disciples. Further, the prayer seems to imply that if unity is attained, it will enable the world to believe. Hence, the counterpart would be, if there is
not unity, the world will have
difficulty believing. Therefore, by that very fact, it seems that in the first great age of the Church, the disunity will cause a
loss of faith, even an
apostasy. But then, in the second great age of the Church, Christ’s Redemptive power will bring about unity, thereby restoring the faith of the world and bringing a second, more perfect conversion, an era where the Gospel will reign quite well. According to the EWTN experts Collin Donovan and Desmond Birch, this seems to be the best scenario that can be drawn from the data of the *approved *Private Revelations. The following article on EWTN provides the details:
http://www.ewtn.com/expert/answers/endtimes.htm
Here, in fact, is a quote which states this:
“Approved Catholic mystics (Venerables, Blessed and Saints, approved apparitions) throw considerable light on this order, by prophesying
a minor apostasy and tribulation toward the end of the world, after which will occur the reunion of Christians. Only later will the entire world fall away from Christ (the great apostasy) and the personal Antichrist arise and the Tribulation of the End occur.”
Hence, God is allowing the division of His disciples and the confounding of the Revelation in order to draw a greater good: He will manifest to man, in a painful teaching lesson of a Chastisement, the errors of rejecting the various truths and graces of the Church, thereby vindicating the Revelation of the Church and reconciling the world back to the Church for a great era of spiritual and materialistic prosperity.
Of course, the world will eventually fall away at some point later, but then they won’t have an excuse, for they will have already learned their lesson. God will then be truly just in ending the world at that time.
I’m pretty sure Luther started Protestantism not God.
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